


heaven.

by parkjinchu



Series: songfics [1]
Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkjinchu/pseuds/parkjinchu
Summary: a songfic of troye sivan's 'heaven'.of bin, who refuses to accept his homosexuality, and of dongmin, who just wants him to feel better.this is a work of fiction, and in no way represents the real lives of astro's members. in case of astro/fantagio/reasonable fan request, this fic will be taken downread full disclaimer on my profile





	heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> hey all!! if you like, i recommend listening to the song when reading! you can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VNV__mV38s)  
> i really love this song, its so beautiful. i dont think i did it justice, so id like to try it again some day!

Bin stands before the mirror, bent over the sink. Prodding his fingers into his cheeks, and at the puffiness surrounding his eyes. At his thin lips and curled nose and long lashes. At the shell of his ear and how it tapers from his hairline, head of hair thick and dark. There’s nothing terribly wrong with him, surface level.

He watches, silently, as a tear cascades down his cheek, full, and sliding beneath his chin. There’s a voice inside of him, begging to be heard, screams echoing within him, as if he were hollow. It manages to escape, periods at a time in tiny teardrops, neatly packaged cries for help. It’s all Bin will allow, for the meantime; the voice can eat away at his heart all it would like. It will never be heard.

 _Accept who you are_ , the voice cries, pricking at his insides, begging for freedom, fighting against the chains and padlocks he’d locked it up with.

The patter of the shower sounds behind him, calling Bin to crawl under. To drown under its stream, to wash away the pain that chews away at him. He can scrub and scrub and scrub at his skin, but he’ll never end that itch, the sting in unreachable places beneath his skin.

 _But, the truth is dangerous_ , the voice tells him, menacing even in its hiding place, _be wary who you tell_.

“I’m not gay,” he tells himself, stepping under the shower, washing his face. Bin can tell himself this all he wants, words sedating with their dishonesty, but he knows it’s untrue. “I don’t want to be,” he says, to nothing and to no one. _You may not want to be, Bin, but you are_.

“Binnie?” He hears through the door, cutting the voice inside him off. It’s Dongmin. Sweet, lovely Lee Dongmin. His voice carries with it concern, a cathartic tone blessing Bin’s ears. He lets himself imagine Dongmin’s face curled with worry, imagine him opening the door and peeling off his day clothes and joining him under the spray of water, pressing kisses to Bin’s puffy cheeks and tired eyes. Imagines Dongmin loving him, in return, ushering away the bad thoughts that plague Bin – healing him.

But, it will never happen. So, he cages up the fantasies, files them away into the furthest corner of his brain. Supressed, forgotten, extinct.

“Binnie,” He calls again, nickname curling off his tongue. Bin’s heart leaps. “It’s time to finish up.”

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Bin replies, over the patter of the water. “I’m almost done,” he says, collecting water in his palms and dumping it over his face, scrubbing at his tear-puffy eyes. He quickly finished up, drying his body and throwing on his pyjamas. Towel wrapped over his dripping hair, he opens the bathroom door, only to discover Dongmin leant against the wall. “Hey,” Bin mutters, surprised, a dainty smile sewing onto his lips.

“Hey,” Dongmin repeats, stepping forward. He pauses before Bin, thumbing the corner of his damp towel, absentmindedly. “You okay?” He asks, caution tripping his tone. “You’ve been a little… _Off_ , lately.”

Bin can’t decipher when ‘lately’ began. Was it when he discovered he was gay, aged twelve and unable to wrap his mind around his friend’s crushes on petite girls in their class? Or, when he was seventeen, wrapped around a girl and peeling off her clothes, unsatisfied by the smooth, luscious curves of her body. Perhaps when they met, and he pushed Dongmin away, in fear of falling for him. Or, when he _did_ fall for Dongmin, releasing the final threads of his sanity in favour of clipped fantasies.

“Oh,” Bin replies, dimly. “I hadn’t noticed, sorry,” he apologises bashfully, trying to step past the older boy, but Dongmin won’t budge.

“Binnie,” he near whispers, a sense of forlorn betrayal sliding off his lips. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” He asks, hand finding his way to Bin’s arm. Long fingers, soft and careful, as if Bin were tissue paper, destroyed with ease.

“Of course,” Bin replies, biting the inside of his cheek. _I will never tell anyone this_ , he thinks, _especially not you_. “But, there’s nothing to tell,” he says, carefully tugging his arm from Dongmin’s grasp and stepping away down the hall.

The voice inside of him shakes at it’s shackles, bashing against his lungs. _Let me out, you piece of shit_ , it cries. _He’s waiting!_

He’d been careless, once. Foul play, gambling, trial and error – whatever one might call it. In the early stages of their debut, when they moved into this very dorm, he’d opted to share a room with Dongmin. There was a selfish fire in his heart, begging for the two-person bedroom. His brain couldn’t tamp out the flames, couldn’t remind his passionate heart what a mistake he was making.

They were, in the end, awarded the twin bedroom, stacked atop each other on bunk beds, two separate entities trapped in one small cage. On nights when the heat became too suffocating, or when his mind grew exhausted creating images of Dongmin cuddled into his side, he would escape to the living room to sleep.

As Bin takes a step inside, Dongmin follows quickly after him, closing the door behind them, guarding it with his body and his mind. Trapped. The rest of their members loiter around the apartment; everyone is blissfully unaware of the treachery within Bin – except, perhaps, Dongmin, whose intelligence is far too uncooperative. Bin stands by the phrase ‘ _ignorance is bliss_ ’.

“Bin, let up!” Dongmin urges, pressing his palm against the wall. “You’ve been acting strangely for ages!”

Bin turns to him, innocence feigned on his downturned lips. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t give me this shit!” Accusing, the older boy extends his index finger at Bin, shaking slightly. “What do you think, Bin? It’s like it comes in waves, like a fucking tide, or something, I don’t know… There are these periods where… Where you just completely shut off! Where you stop talking to me, you don’t eat much, you give in at practice. When you spend so long in the shower I wonder if you’ve exhausted the city’s water allowance…”

He stops a moment, taking in a deep breath. Bin feels frozen, locked in place.

“It comes and goes, and it’s terrifying, Bin. It’s like… I wonder if you’ll ever return to normal, and then I question what normal is, for us, and then I wake up and it’s like you never left, and you’re here, and you’re okay, and I wonder if I just imagined it, if I projected…” It’s a long sentence, cut and sewn back together, trailing off as he struggles to come up with what to say next.

“I didn’t… I don’t mean to scare you, Dongmin,” Bin replies, in the silence, dropping his towel to his shoulders. An angry fire boils in his chest, “Since when was how long I spent in the shower any of your business? When did anyone care about how much I ate, or how well I did in practice? It’s for me to worry about, not you!” He spits, quite unsure of what to say, so just fires rebuttal.

“I just… I want you to be okay! I want to know what’s wrong! To see if I can make it better!” He cries, stepping away from the door. Bin can almost sense the presence of the rest of the dorm outside the door, listening in. They’d called too much attention, Dongmin’s sudden outburst had attracted interest.

The voice is clawing at Bin’s throat, struggling to escape through his trembling lips, just managing in tiny teardrops that sweep over his cheeks. Again. Again, and again, it happened too often. Too often he cried, shedding tears in the hopes that the feeling inside him would ebb away.

Dongmin stands silently, distant, watching as the tears continue to fall from Bin’s eyes. There’s a heavy weight in his chest, a chilling angst roaring through his blood. He shudders, feeling the confession ready to tumble out of his trembling lips. To be scrutinised, to be examined, to be _caught_ in such a way; Bin felt defenceless.

Before he can allow the secret to fall from his tongue, the secret he’d let grow since he first learnt what _love_ meant, Bin throws off his towel, shoves Dongmin aside, and runs out the door. The others are waiting outside, ears pressed against the wall in the hopes of catching what they’d say, stunned as Bin hurries past them. He stuffs his feet into his shoes, before running out the door and slamming it behind him.

Fresh air. It slaps him in the face as he bursts through the main entrance of the apartment, cool air filling his lungs and drying fresh tears. He runs down the street, away, further and further away, until their street is lost in the maze of the city. Too busy trying to escape, sobbing harder with each step he took away from home, Bin didn’t think about where exactly he was going. He just _went_.

There’s a little park, here, a hill with a swing set perched on top. It overlooks a suburban highway, cars ducking in and out of side streets, soaring through on their ways home. The white noise numbs the rage in Bin’s heart. Anger, at Dongmin for catching him out, and at himself, for running away from his first chance at acceptance.

Bin settles on the swing, kicking his sneakers into the sand as he swings gently. For a moment, he feels like a kid again. Curious and innocent, without the weight of the world’s opinions dangling from his shoulders. He allows himself this quiet, this soothing loneliness he hasn’t felt in so long, indulging in the silence.

It’s cut rather short, by a head of black hair bobbing over the horizon of the hill. Familiar eyes peer over the grass, searching gaze meeting Bin’s. Relief visibly washes over Dongmin, as he hurries over the crest to the swing set. Bin honestly can’t decide if he’s happy to see him or not.

Silently, Dongmin settles in the swing beside him, and together they watch the city lights above them twinkle like stars.

“You can’t say you ‘thought you’d find me here’,” Bin tells him after a while, sniffling and wiping at his nose. They were in the middle the city, lost in foreign suburbia. “Did you follow me?”

Dongmin huffs out a laugh, finishing with a sigh. He turns to Bin, clutched onto the chain of the swing. “Maybe,” he answers. “Would you be upset if I did?”

“I can’t decide.”

“Oh.”

Dongmin pushes himself off from the ground, sending the swing backwards. With practiced ease, he pulls the swing into a gentle rhythm. Bin watches from the corner of his eye, as the wind sweeps through his hair and flutters over his closed eyelids. He looks so peaceful, so sweet, so picturesque.

“I’m sorry if I freaked you out,” Dongmin says, suddenly, eyes still closed. “I suppose it’s kinda like payback – for all the waves of worry you’ve sent me.” He shoves his foot in the sand, effectively ending his swinging. “I think I went about it all the wrong way. I just wanted to check if you were okay, but I ended up interrogating you.”

Bin wants to say it’s okay, but it isn’t.

“Have you ever said something you didn’t want too?” Dongmin asks, because Bin isn’t responding anymore.

“Almost,” he replies, finally, referring to the event only minutes before, back in the dorm.

“In hindsight, did it need to be said?”

“Probably.”

Dongmin twists the chains of his swing, turning to face Bin. “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, I shouldn’t have been so vile to you. I just… I wanted you to know that I was here, if you ever needed it.” A tremor of guilt shakes within Bin. Without anything to hold him back anymore, Bin starts to cry.

Violent, body quaking sobs, choking out of him. He folds over on his swing, hiding his face in his hands. He hears Dongmin stand, make his way through the squeaking sand to his side, but Bin stops him, raising his hand. “Go back,” he demands, voice watery. “I don’t want to see your reaction when I say this,” he says.

 _Finally_ , the voice inside him cries, surging through his throat, hacking at the backs of his teeth.

The chains of Dongmin’s swing rattle as he sits back down.

 _It’s now or never_ , the voice tells him toppling over the tip of his tongue.

Dongmin will never stop, kindness relentless, as he says, “Bin, you know you don’t have to tell-.”

“I’m gay!” Bin shouts, interrupting him. Dongmin’s sentence immediately dies, and then the two of them are silent, except for Bin’s heart crushing sobs. “I’m gay,” he says again, calmer, this time. The words have left him, his secret is out. He feels a weight rise off his back, feels his mind flood with relief – and yet, he’s still to hear what Dongmin has to say in return.

When he says nothing, Bin turns to him.

The older boy is staring at him, eyes glassy as they overflow with silent tears, a tight smile pulled between his cheeks. He’s the essence of the believed heaven, shining and sparkling and so peaceful. He’s furiously wiping at his cheeks, but to no avail, as he continues to silently cry.

“I’m gay,” Bin repeats, this time facing Dongmin. Says it for emphasis, for understanding; for himself, and for Dongmin. And, Dongmin nods, smile growing a little wider. “Why are you crying?”

“Because,” Dongmin replies, eyes glittering under the light of the moon and streetlamps. “Now I know I’m not alone.”

Bin blinks. Without thinking, he launches up from his swing, hurrying over to Dongmin. He crouches to his knees, eye-level with him, cupping Dongmin’s sweet face within his rough palms. An unspoken question in his gaze, as his eyes flicker over the older boy’s face, tracing the outline of his full lips.

Dongmin runs one hand over Bin’s hair, cradling it at the nape of his neck, drawing Bin’s face in closer. Silently, they press their lips together, finally accepting what they’d pushed away for so long. _Love_. Bin can taste tears on Dongmin’s lips, salty and warm, and can feel his sticky cheeks press up against his own, but it’s okay. For the first time in his entire life, he feels loved and accepted. Selfishly, he takes all the Dongmin gives him, and does his best to return it.

It feels as if the world may have stopped. As if it waited for them to finish, to give them the time they’d spent so long throwing away. But, as they pull away, the traffic continues to surge, and the moon still crawls across the night sky. Dongmin’s phone buzzes uncontrollably, probably loaded with texts from their leader, wondering if they were safe.

They are. Held in each other’s arms, crying into their t-shirts, pressing their lips wherever they can reach.

“Binnie, wait – I,” Dongmin begins, untangling his fingers from the long hair at the back of Bin’s head. “I want you to know, I, I don’t want to pressure you into anything, but, I, uh,” he blubbers awkwardly, looking at their connected hands. Bin waits, hunched on his toes, adrenaline churning within him. “I really like you, Bin. I have since we practically met, and I’m so happy now, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to be with me, just because we both like boys.”

Lee Dongmin, ever the voice of reason and concern, of justice and equality. Lee Dongmin, so humble in all aspects of his waking life. Lee Dongmin, the very subject of Bin’s heart.

“Min,” Bin calls, hands dancing down to Dongmin’s waist experimentally, exploring a place he’d never allowed himself. Dongmin lifts his head, gaze glistening. “Stupid. I like you. I like you so much. Since forever,” he says, pressing his forehead up under Dongmin’s chin, pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw.

Dongmin rises to his feet, pulling Bin up with him. “Moon Bin!” He shouts, pulling the younger boy into his chest. He calls the world’s attention, but it seems it’s just themselves. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

Perhaps the planets had aligned. A new constellation born, maybe? Something special had to have occurred for Bin to be experiencing such a pleasure. To hear those words, that question, spoken from Dongmin’s lips, after dreaming of this for so long. He felt compelled to double check, in case he’d heard things, but Dongmin’s head is sweetly tilted as he waits for a response, eyes glimmering.

“Lee Dongmin!” Bin mimics, wrapping his arms around Dongmin’s thin waist. “I would like nothing more.”

The walk home begins with finding a map on the side of a bus stop nearby, trying to work out which street will lead them back home. From there, hands strung between them as they strolled the quiet, dark streets, they exchanged secrets. Such as how long they’d loved each other, how long they’d kept their sexuality hidden, and though flustered when announced, some of their sweet fantasies.

They decide, on the final corner before their dorm, to keep it a secret from the others. Until they’ve grown completely comfortable, until they’ve healed each other thoroughly. For now, they’re confined to the four walls of their bedroom, the security of Dongmin’s lower bunk.

Bin learns the outline of Dongmin’s body, all sharp angles and angelically bony. He maps out the inside of Dongmin’s mind, thousands of florid pathways, creative thoughts and intelligent beliefs. He traces the inside of Dongmin’s mouth, memorises the way their tongues feel tangling together, the way Dongmin’s hands brand his skin when they make love. Memorises exactly how Dongmin wakes up in the morning, puffy eyed, a track of dried drool extending from his lip. Takes notes on how Dongmin expresses his love, in gentle touches and delicate whispers dedicated solely for Bin.

Perhaps, he was crazy for waiting for so long. For supressing these thoughts and trying to remove them entirely. For trying to erase Dongmin from his subconscious mind. There are times when he fears he made the wrong choice – when a fan declares her love, or when an interviewer asks about their love lives. But, upon further thought, a side-eyed glance from Dongmin, too, he knows he’s made the right decision.

He deduces – one night as Dongmin tangles his body around Bin’s, head tucked under Bin’s shirt in a desperate search for warmth against the Winter chill – that a person can make two choices. _To suffer_ or _to love_.

Together, they chose the latter.

**Author's Note:**

> ahh i hope you enjoyed :) i want to write some more songfics :D  
> come cry at me, in the comments, or you can find me on tumblr and twitter under the handle 'parkjinchu' <3


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